We all know the often very difficult conditions for people with disabilities to participate in political life. There are many reasons for this, but sometimes there is simply a lack of suitable material and information. Some are also not familiar with the political system and feel deterred. In the EU project myPart, we aimed to change these conditions and developed suitable materials for workshops. Now we have concluded the myPart project, which was funded by the EU under ERASMUS+.

What are the results of the project?

There is a lot of tailor-made material and documents for educational activities available:

•  In the myPart Workshops for Civic Education you can learn about five important topics: civil and human rights, basics of democracy, European values, processes of election and decision-making, and political participation. The last module is also about finding your own voice in politics and society.
• The myPart Handbook in easy-to-read presents the information of the workshops in simple language. It can be used as a learning tool in the workshops or can be used by interested people for self-study.
• The five myPart Videos pick up on topics from the workshops and encourage discussion. They can be used in the workshops.
• The fourth product, the myPart Policy Recommendations, is aimed at political and societa decision-makers. They are given concrete ideas on how to make politics and social life more accessible. The recommendations are also available in simple language as a bonus.

In this additional video you can find out why political participation and self-advocacy is so important for the target group:

Interviews with Self-Advocates

The project partnership consisted of: Lebenshilfen Soziale Dienste GmbH, (Austria), Coordination, Zavod RISA (Slovenia), FENACERCI (Portugal) and Laterna Magica (Hungary). There were cooperation groups in all countries. In these groups, people with intellectual disabilities helped develop the workshops, the handbook, the films and the recommendations all the time. In the summer of 2022, they also invited people from the partner countries to a so-called Civic Circle to discuss questions from the project with people from politics, education and NGOs. A second Civic Circle took place in the countries in March or April 2022 as a national closing event.

For more information and to download all results, please visit our website: www.mypart-project.eu.